“What’s this about?”
“I don’t know and I didn’t ask, but we’ll find out soon enough.”
Pope glanced at Evan. “It’ll have to wait. I’ve got company.”
“She’ll keep.”
Pope checked the clock near his bed. Just past five. Outside, the sky was beginning to show just a hint of light.
Where the hell was that social worker?
“It’s not that easy,” he said. “Give me an hour or so and-”
“ Now,” Sharkey told him. And the tone was not friendly.
Fuck.
Pope was about to suggest that Sharkey and his boss go straight to hell, but knew that wouldn’t be wise. Over the last couple years, thanks to a woefully bad string of luck, Pope had managed to dig himself into a two- hundred-thousand-dollar hole with Anderson Troy. A debt that had more or less turned Pope into an indentured slave.
With a resigned sigh, he said, “I’ll be right up.”
“That’s a good boy.”
Sharkey clicked off.
Pope looked at Evan again, wondering if he should call Jake, see if social services was making any progress. He figured there wasn’t much chance of the boy waking up while he was gone, but didn’t really want to leave him alone.
Before he could stop himself, he was thinking about Ben again. About the good times, when he and Susan would stand over their son’s crib, watching him sleep, thinking they were the luckiest couple in the world, having a child so perfect. So beautiful.
And later, when Ben was five-a young genius, Pope was sure-all those trips to the hospital, no longer the perfect son, but prone to a myriad of ailments that the doctors had trouble diagnosing.
Little did anyone know that it was Susan they should have been examining. Susan who had been causing Ben pain. A classic case of Munchhausen by proxy. A mental illness that had led directly to their son’s death.
It was an accident, Susan later told investigators in a teary-eyed confession-a confession Pope wouldn’t have believed she’d made if he hadn’t seen the tape himself. After years of systematically abusing their son, of turning him into a sick little boy in a twisted attempt to gain sympathy and attention, she had finally gone too far. Setting the station wagon on fire, then claiming she’d been carjacked had been a desperate attempt to cover up the crime.
An attempt that had almost worked.
Pope supposed he should have sympathy for Susan, but he didn’t. Just the opposite, in fact. Hating her somehow made it easier to cope. Made him feel less guilty that he hadn’t seen the signs, hadn’t realized the truth before it was too late.
Pope’s gut burned. At times like this, he would normally distract himself with a game or a beautiful woman or a bowl of dope, but none of those were an option right now. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he was responsible for someone, and he cursed Jake for making that happen.
There was no telling what Troy wanted or how long it would take. The only option was to find a substitute babysitter. Someone he could trust. Or, at least, rely on.
Moving to the phone by his bed, he punched in a two-digit code. A moment later a familiar voice answered the call.
“Room service.”
“Hey, Kel, it’s me, Danny.”
Pope had been expecting another face-to-face with Troy, but it was more than that. Much more.
Troy had gone a bit overboard with the hired muscle-mostly because he had no real friends-but Pope rarely saw them all assembled in the same room at the same time.
Sharkey was here, looking sleepy and miffed, along with Arturo, and the so-called twin defenders, Joshua and Jonah, whom Pope always thought of as a single entity. He’d never seen them apart.
Then there was the strange creature who sat in a corner of the room, observing them all from a distance as if close contact might somehow contaminate him.
The Ghost.
He always wore dark suits and orange-tinted glasses-something about light-sensitive eyes-and reminded Pope of an undertaker.
Pope wasn’t sure what the guy did, exactly, or why they called him that, but he could make a pretty good guess, and his presence here did not bring on thoughts of happiness and light.
It was times like this that Pope wondered how the hell he had ever allowed himself to fall in with this sorry lot.
But who was he kidding? He knew all too well how it had happened. The debt he owed Troy had not been accumulated over a single night, and was not the result of a single bad hand, but rather a string of horrendous hands that stretched the entire two-year span of time that Pope had been haunting the Oasis. He was hopelessly addicted to poker in all of its forms, and was notoriously bad at playing the game.
It would be years before he worked off his debt. Most of his take from Metamorphosis — a show that had been all Troy’s idea in lieu of an actual cash payback-went straight to the man himself, including interest. The rest went to room and board. And whether he liked it or not, Pope was locked into a payment plan that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon.
Or would it?
The way everyone was staring at him, he couldn’t be sure. He glanced down at the carpet just to make sure he wasn’t standing on plastic, and made a mental note to keep Arturo within his line of sight.
“So,” he said to Troy, who was once again sprawled on the sofa. “Still having problems with Nigel Fromme?”
“I think we’ve gotten beyond poor Nigel, don’t you?”
Pope had no idea what that meant and told him so.
“Come on, Daniel. Don’t play dumb.”
“I’m not playing,” Pope said. “I am dumb. Dumb as rocks. I think I’ve proven that more than a few times. So why don’t you pretend I just got off the short bus and tell me what the hell you want.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so hostile, but fear does that to you. It’s not easy to stay calm when you’ve got a half-dozen pairs of eyes staring you down, especially when you have no idea why.
Troy, however, didn’t seem to notice his tone-which wasn’t unusual for a guy who was so self-absorbed.
“I like to think that I’ve been a good friend to you, Daniel. I’ve given you a place to live, an opportunity to display your talents, and a relatively painless way to relieve yourself of your financial burden.”
Pope said nothing.
“When you came here, you were a broken man. But by inviting you into this little family of mine, I think I’ve been instrumental in changing that fact. Helped you glue some of the pieces back together, so to speak.” He paused. “Am I wrong about that?”
Again Pope said nothing. He knew Troy wasn’t really expecting an answer. Certainly not the one Pope was likely to provide.
“I don’t think I am,” Troy said. “What I am is surprised. Surprised that you would accept my generosity, then turn around and stab me in the back.”
Say what?
Pope responded this time. Didn’t hide his confusion. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You’ve been smoking a little too much weed, my friend. I might have to cut you off.” He paused. “You had a visitor this morning. Why don’t you tell me about her?”
“What’s to tell?”
Troy frowned. “For starters, do the initials FBI mean anything to you?”
Ohhhhhh, crap, Pope thought.
He truly was as dumb as rocks. He should have known that this was what Troy was on about.
